It would make a decent HM Bateman cartoon: The Man Who Won Olympic Gold After Being Thrown Out For Not Trying. Actually, it is a good story on all sorts of levels. Barely 24 hours after he was excluded from the Games for what many saw as a lack of moral fibre, Algeria's Taoufik Makhloufi won the men's 1500m title at an almost embarrassing canter. Idle perceptions have rarely been confounded so swiftly and utterly.

Those Chinese badminton players chucked out for deliberately underperforming last week will wonder afresh whether the rules are being applied entirely evenly across the board. Unlike them, Makloufi was reprieved by the authorities having initially been excluded from the Olympics for making only a cursory effort in Monday's 800m heat, raising all kinds of conflicting questions.

The International Association of Athletics Federations had initially taken a dim view of the Algerian's 800m performance, in which he jogged barely 150m before opting to drop out and wander back across the infield. "The referee considered he had not provided a bona fide effort and decided to exclude him from participation in all further events in the competition," said an IAAF statement.

Locog, however, later released a statement confirming the disqualification had been revoked after a medical certificate was supplied by a local doctor suggesting he had a knee problem. Makhloufi had clearly not wanted to race in the 800m, particularly after qualifying impressively for the 1,500m final. His judgment, which had looked distinctly suspect, suddenly appears sharper than anyone else's.

He was certainly trying this time, going off fastest and muscling his way past fellow runners on two or three occasions to ensure he remained in the leading bunch. Then, with one lap to go, he took off like a bullet, laying waste the field from 200m out to win comfortably in 3min 34.08sec. Leonel Manzano of the United States won the silver in a time of 3:47.79, with Morocco's Abdalaati Iguider taking bronze. The defending Olympic champion, Asbel Kiprop, was prominent in the early stages but finished last after suffering a hamstring problem.

Not surprisingly, the former double Olympic 1500m champion Seb Coe rightly described it as "a funny race". The rest of the field either got it tactically wrong or had been lulled into a false sense of security. "I'm really surprised as to why those guys let it run at such a slow pace when they knew that Makhloufi had such a strong finish," said Coe. "They played into his hands."

And the knee problem? Let's just say it didn't look life-threatening. Not since the West Indian opener Gordon Greenidge, who used to develop a limp as a prelude to hitting the ball even harder than he did when fully fit, has an injury appeared to have such a positive effect on the supposed patient. Given he did not so much as rub it when he pulled out on Monday, it is a highly unusual medical case. "Every person who wins a race forgets about his aches and pains," retorted Makhloufi airily. "I was told that competing might be a bit dangerous for me. Being thrown out did not have a huge affect on my morale. Following the medical test it was proven I was suffering from a knee injury and I was allowed to compete."

Back in the champion's birthplace, Souk Ahras, in the north of Algeria, they will not care about such technicalities. The word "ahra" translates as lion, a reference to the Barbary lions which lurked in the neighbouring forests until their extinction in 1930. There is also a track record of 1500m success in the country, Noureddine Morceli having also won gold in the same event in Atlanta in 1996. "Anyone would dream of following Morceli," said his successor. "I'm very happy to have won and all Algerians will be too."

Those raising eyebrows at his sharp improvement this year, during which he has shaved 2.5sec off his personal best, were also given short shrift, with a new coach and huge dedication being cited as the crucial factors: "For seven months I have not seen my family. They've only been able to see me in TV. I've been working hard since I was 15."

The fact remains, nevertheless, that he came close to missing out on the greatest day of his life because of an opaque "rule" which seems open to question on a number of levels. Did Usain Bolt try his hardest in the 200m heats? It mattered not because he still finished first. If the cardinal sin is actively trying not to win, where does that leave, say, "joke" bowling in cricket to try to set up a declaration?

The British sprint canoeist Richard Jefferies finished a distant last in his 1000m single canoe semi-final on Monday, admitting he was saving himself for his 200m C1 sprint later this week. No one claimed that was disgraceful or demanded his expulsion. Makhloufi, if we are being brutally honest, was simply attempting to improve his chances of winning the one that really mattered to him. To say he has had the last laugh would be an understatement.